The Inside Story: Perata in His Own Words on the California Budget Process and Results

So the burden is now n them. If this budget is held up further, it is because they're holding it up and I hope they can explain why because it's not very clear right now/ So that when you ask me or anybody else asks me--"Well why is this being held up?" you're aksing the wrong guy here cuz I don't know.

And it's no more complicated than that. I sent everybody home.

We're not trying to be untoward here. They've got all the data that we have. It's all public data. If they get to a point where they feel that they want to sit down and negotiate with us, we're going to be available to negotiate. But right now, they need to create a document as we have created a document that represents our priorities.

And to remind you again, we have made a lot of concessions here. We've done all that we can as Democrats to protect the most vulnerable populations, to protect education, to protect higher education, with what funds there are available in the budget.

There are no new taxes, there are no new programs. Any growth here has been caseload driven. More kids, you have to have more teachers. More people on SSI, you have to have more social workers. You put more people in jail, you have to have more prison guards. That's why this budget is growing and for no other reason.

So, we've got a $3.4 billion dollar reserve, and Mr. McClintock can, you know, make all the sophist remarks that he wants, the fact of the matter is--is $3.4 [billion] --it is the biggest. It is a rainy day fund--we accept that contingencies in the future are vague and could be disastrous, we have a nice cushion for there. We have cut down to $700 million on a deficit. We are twice as high as the Governor on reserves, and half again his size on the deficit.

So this is not a budget, I've said before that would make my highlight reel, but it is a good bipartisan budget, it is a responsible budget and we believe that rather than allowing schools and community colleges to start and no money for them, we should hurry up and finish this spot.

Q. [Inaudible]

Here again its one of those questions you should ask them. I don't know what's going on.

Well, you know, leader to leader, as I've said the goal line has always moved. Here one day we're at $700 [million] then we're at $500 [million] then it's got to go to zero. It makes your head spin. So, I don't know what it is. Maybe, you know, it's Republicans wanting to continue to have a little more time in the sun. I don't know. But I'm finished guessing. I am perplexed. I'm frustrated. We take this seriously. I think the Governor's tried to do what he could do, so we're going to just put the burden where it belongs and the responsibility where it belongs.

If those 15 members of this Republican State Senate want to stop state government, they're on their way to doing it.

Q. Do you have the option of changing the budget all that much?

Well I've made it clear that we are done with the budget. See, we were negotiating this thing as four leaders, and never you mind the reason the Assembly got the budget done and out of town, they did what they were supposed to do. I mean, ironically, it's usually the Senate that finishes up and flips it over there because they have to usually give a lot more speeches. But for whatever reason that was a budget that all--most of us agreed on--all of it. Now I've told Mr. Ackerman I am not going to reopen that budget. I am not going to reopen it. That would be irresponsible.

And so, we don't really have to send it back to the Assembly. They've said it has to go back. I've said it does not.

And I've also said, and some of you may have heard it last night. We've spent a lot of time in the last year and a half, two years, building bipartisanship on this side. Actually in the building, but certainly in the Senate. We have developed a very good, cordial working relationship that has been productive for the citizens of this state. If there's something that they believe is not what it should be, or if we've made a mistake in language, we'll fix it. We're not going to try to, you know, mug them when they're not looking. We will, in the same spirit that we got here, we will fix any problems that we believe are mutual to the interests at hand. So I don't know what else we can do. I really don't.

Q. Does this have bad implications for the term limit initiative?

A lot of people keep speculating about that. It's not my initiative. I've had nothing to do with it. We're doing our job. We've done our job. "The path is the best predictor of the future."

You know, people reward good behavior and they punish bad behavior. We're not getting the job done right now. It's very clear. I'm tired of people saying the Seante and the Legislature are not doing their jobs. It is the Republicans in this Senate. It's one of the four parties responsible for this.

The Governor said yesterday, I will sign this budget, but I will not make any more cuts and jeopardize education. So he's saying the same thing we've been saying. And the only place we believe left to go is to start cutting education or cutting programs that are going to hurt vulnerable people. If they believe we don't have to do that, I'm going to be in the front row with a good seat and try to figure out how to do that.

Q. Largely inaudible about the efforts of the Governor.

The Administration, and I will just characterize this, in talking to a number of people who have been actively engaged, including the Governor, they can't figure it out either. Now you can go down and ask them. But they just didn't know. They said "What do you want?" You offer them something, they want something else. So they have had the same experience, as I can tell, as Democrats her have had.

I think the Governor has been trying to figure out and accommodate, but he clearly has not been able to do that. At some point, you just have to say, "enough is enough." You tell us how you're going to balance this budget without savaging the essential programs. We do have some core responsibilities in state government Education is one of them, public safety is another. If we have a big fire in the next couple of weeks, as they say in New Jersey, God forbid, then what are we going to do?

So, I think the Governor has done all that he can do right now. This is about my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

Q. Senator, how was your night?

I was kind of hopeful that if you get everybody together, and you are in sort of a forced march, you can get some things done. But every time we brought up one thing, another thing came up.

We were last night talking about trains in one part of a trailer bill. Trains! Whether or not UP and BNSF could or could not be eligible. I mean, I got to the point where I said--"OK, I don't care much, but is a deal maker." "No, no, this is just something in this part of the deal." How do you negotiate that way?

I hope what they come back with is a budget and a set of negotiating points. Which is the way you normally do and then you remove--then you arrive at a deal.

Two things have happened this year that are really bizarre. One is, that now, all of a sudden operating deficit has become a science. They can predict what will be happening next year. That's why we usually have a reserve. Because now operating deficits are a science.

The second thing is somehow a budget is supposed to be consensus. It's a negotiated document: By definition it's not consensus. It's a negotiated agreement. Everybody didn't sit around and finally got comfortable with everything we did. We're not comfortable with everything. But we had a job to do.

Q. [Inaudible]

This is not the Assembly's problem. I hate to say that. But the Assembly did their job. They sent the budget over here. If the Republicans come back in the Senate with a budget and it's a budget that they can vote for unanimously, like we have to, and we can agree--12 of my colleagues in my caucus can agree, then, if it's something that has to go back to the Assembly, it would go back to the Assembly.

We're a long ways away from that. We spent a couple or three days talking about flipping something back over to them. We don’t have anything to flip. So, that's the point. The burden is really on them. This is not any shell game. This is not a drill. It's the reality.

I don't understand anything more. And the irony is, when we did our budget and threw it over to the Assembly, everybody around here high fived, tackled, and left. So, somehow it's OK for us to do that, but it's not OK for them to do that.

And we've taken care of this tax package, whatever it was. That never was a consideration. So that hasn't held us up. We had actually agreed. They didn't think it was any good, we didn't either, so we said, OK, tell us how we can agree.

Q. Senator Ackerman talked to reporters yesterday after the session and he laid out four points:

He wanted a reduction in what he regards as $700 million over an operational balancing of the budget.

He wanted some unspecified changes in the bond [inaudible]

He wanted a change in CEQA [the California Environmental Quality Assurance Act]. He said that Attorney General Jerry Brown was abusing it.

And his third point [sic] was some kind of a tax break--incentive for people who make investment in California to get a tax credit.

In a way, it sounds fairly specific, but is he telling you something different?

Well, first of all, when you've got the budget that's been negotiated and all of a sudden you're bringing up things that you haven't brought up before, that's bad faith bargaining. Now maybe that's done in very good intention, it's bad faith. We are not going to negotiate--you saw what happened over there when they tried to do a tax cut in just a couple of days. They ended up actually raising taxes, not relieving taxes.

Why would we hang up the budget to provide high end rich people with a tax break?

Secondly, this CEQA. This is a budget. It is not a policy document. CEQA is a policy. It's embedded in the law. And we have said if we have problems with CEQA as it related to SB 32 [I think he meant AB 32] which is also a law, not the budget, let's sit down and figure ot what that's going to be.

To make Jerry Brown the villain here because he has filed a single lawsuit in a single county in California, to me is just fatuous. But we're being held hostage now because they don't like the CEQA law and they're going to change it. That has nothing to do with the budget.

And the final point-- 700 [billion dollars]. That was when, I don't know when he held that press conference, this morning when I talked to him, it was zero. So, we wanted 700, now we want zero.

Q. Aren't you giving up a lot of power with this idea of making Republicans get Democratic votes? I mean is that a signal...

I'll tell you what. The way California's budget works where it requires a two-thirds vote--which is what we call a supermajority in a society that is really run by a majority vote--democratic rule. So, we have a situation where a few people can dictate to the many. They are overreaching. They are trying to use a budget document as a hostage to try to get social or some other kinds of changes that they would not, could not, and will not get through another process itself.

So, they have chosen a path that means the burden is squarely on their shoulders. I hope that Wednesday, when they come here, you can sit down with them, they can tell you with specificity "these are the cuts that we want to make." And then I can stand up and say: "Well you know what--You're going to hurt children if you do that; you're going to hurt education if you do that; you're going to hurt this if you do that."

What they want to do right now is they want to cut into law enforcement. They want to cut into higher education. They say they don't want to cut into Prop 98. I'll be really happy to see how they're could avoid doing that.

So, and I don't say this with any kind of rancor. You know, we could all go out and have a taco together. That would be fine. But this is not--we're not eating lunch here now. We're trying to do the business of the state of California. So that's what I hope gets done. And we're available to negotiate with them after they give us something that's not continually moving."